We Don't Dream
by jurawks
Summary: Clint and Natasha don't really angst over kills or nightmares or the past. They make up elaborate missions. They don't do holidays. Sometimes Clint wins in hand-to-hand combat. They don't hurt the way people think they do. WARNING: Language.


I don't think they understand.

Nat and I, we have no trouble sleeping afterwards. We don't have nightmares, we don't dream, we don't wake up in cold sweat, we don't wish things were different. We all have our own regrets, but Nat and I, we've done away with ours.

SHIELD gave us another life, another job, another chance. We don't throw away such salvation, no one does. Sure, our hands are stained with blood and sometimes, when we're alone, we entertain fantasies of what it'd be like if we were born at a different time, in a different land, with a different life. No Red Room experimentation, no KGB, no circuses, no near-death experiences. Sometimes we entertain fantasies of what would happen if a mission took a dive for the worse and there was no SHIELD to pull us out of the scrap. But then we laugh, remember that we're the best motherfucking assassins the world has ever seen, and we toast to it, and down another beer.

Nat doesn't really like beers. She's more of a vodka person, Russian upbringing and all that jazz. But she compromises for my sake. Because I'm so bad at drinking. And it has nothing to do with my father who decided to drunk-drive and kill himself and my mother. No. I've faced that demon before, and it turns out that it was just my stomach that didn't agree so well to burning liquor. But I down beers anyway, torture my stomach, get drunk and crash into bed, and wake up with nasty hangovers. Because I don't want Nat to feel alone when she drinks.

Nat and I, we don't do holidays. We don't go skiing down the Alps or shop in Paris or watch the sunset by the beach. We're too jumpy for such romanticism. We don't believe in that. We believe in taking long walks down Wall Street, checking out fancy security features and making elaborate plans to kill that nameless white collar mobster whose shady bank account in the Caymans is home to the profits he made from human trafficking. We don't make up realistic background information about our fantasy targets. It's always the same nameless white collar mobster. Sometimes we spice things up and make him Arabic, or Mexican or Japanese, because we like to indulge in stereotypes. And sometimes Nat likes to make him a woman because she's sick of being around men so much and would really like to have a target that's pleasing on the eyes for once.

On the days that Coulson or Hill or Fury force us to take a vacation, Nat and I pick exotic places halfway across the world. Mongolia, India, Ukraine. We're not always good with the languages but we take it in good stride and laugh at ourselves. When we're there, we make up fantasy situations where we need to hunt down the nameless white collar mobster with our bare hands-no weapons, no extraction plan. Sometimes, when no one is looking, Nat and I spar. In public, she likes to throw it in my face that I can never beat her in hand-to-hand. But when we're alone, sometimes I win. Because I play dirty. And the look on Nat's face is priceless. Because Clint Barton is rebellious, but he's too damn principled to hit under the belt. Sometimes I like to remind her that I'm really not that principled, because if I were, we'd never be partners. She'd scoff and say that I should play dirty more often. And when I raise an eyebrow suggestively, she would swing a right hook that I'd let connect. And I'd pretend that it hurt.

It doesn't hurt when she walks through HQ, sore and bruised from a mission, but with pride in her eyes that she'd taken down another enemy. It doesn't hurt when someone threatens to kill her in front of my eyes, or vice versa, because we always find a way out. It doesn't hurt when I'm suspended for an indefinite period of time, confined to my apartment for insubordinate behaviour and Nat gives me _THE_ look. What really hurts is that Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff will only ever be partners.


End file.
